Arista Networks

Bleeding-edge work. There are many opportunities to innovate in the datacenter switching space, especially if you work on SDN.

Very smart, knowledgeable engineering team. I've learned a lot during my time here.

Great work culture. No problems with working from home. Helpful, approachable colleagues. Managers don't micromanage. I'm given a choice of projects rather than being assigned one.

There’s a “just do it” attitude - anyone can pick up anything that they think needs improvement and make it better. The focus is on building great products. Switching teams to work on something different is a breeze.

Free snacks on every floor.

Very good work-life balance. I’ve hardly ever worked on weekends. PTO policy is quite generous.

Best development environment I've worked in. Version control wrappers, a custom programming language, well-thought-out software architecture, and automated testing make coding, browsing code, integrating, and testing hassle-free.

Excellent place for fresh grads looking to build system software coding and design skills for the future.

Pre-IPO stock options were very attractive, but salaries and benefits have remained well below the industry average, even post-IPO.

Pay hikes are rare. There is no 401k matching. Refresher stock grants are minuscule compared to the initial grant. The bonus payout is low, as it’s a percentage of the depressed base salary. There is no target percentage, so employees don't have an idea what they will be paid. The criteria for determining bonus payouts isn't made clear to employees. There is a pretty high attrition rate after pre-IPO stock grants vest because of the steep drop in total compensation.

Career paths are not well defined, and the opacity of the review process is difficult to deal with. Engineer levels are kept confidential, so it's hard to know when or if you are making progress. When asked for specific input on how to grow into larger roles, management gives very broad feedback. Also, the flat organization structure makes it very hard to move from individual contributor roles to people management.

There is some risk that the company's growth will be hurt by ongoing litigation.

Certain important green card documents are withheld from H1 employees. Although it can be worked around, it is an unnecessary inconvenience.

Great job building a successful and fast-growing public company. Maintaining an open, engineer-driven, flexible work culture is important. But ultimately, engineers want to get paid, so being competitive on salary and benefits is essential to attract and retain talent. Transparency is also very important, so letting folks know their levels and giving them specific input on how they can make progress helps a lot. If these are sorted out, Arista will be among the best places to work in the valley.